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Fiction: What The Leprechaun Said..

As I like a challenge. I decided to take part in the Absolute Write March 2013 Blog Chain. Being as it’s March and nearly St Paddy’s day the prompt is “What the Leprechaun Said..” Anything St Patricks related, thats how I read it anyway. As always I just hope it’s not shit. Please check out the work of the other members of this months chain. I will update the links to the articles when they are all available. This is the first AW thing I’ve done, so I hope I got the point of it.

Patrick had always been a good guy for as long as I could remember. At school, he was always the one who had his homework done early, his uniform clean and pressed. We didn’t socialise in the same circles, Patrick was a square. But we lived in the same small village so we were aware of each other. People gossip y’know.

Patrick was a regular in attendance at the local church. I didn’t go, well I was there in the car park in the early days to stand around with my friends and smoke. Oh Jesus I was such a wannabe gangster.

We were chalk and cheese, when I was trying out my first joint, Patrick was helping out at the homeless shelter. Whilst I was trying to cop off with Lindsay and her sister Lorna behind the local pub, Patrick was practicing his wedding vows. Patrick married Maria, a girl from Church at when they were both just 16.

She was a pretty girl. Lorna on the other hand was a skank. She suited my persona, I went out of my way to be bad. Swearing, Spitting, joyriding. I got drunk every weekend from the ages of 15 to 22. Pissed and pissed off at the world. Hey, everyone is at that age. Everyone aside from Patrick. Why can’t you be more like Patrick? People said that a lot. The guy was a saint.

Those same people were surprised when I got my job. I was the talk of the village. Mum was proud, finally. Patrick himself was pleased so I heard.

In a sleepy village like ours nothing happens. I’d held down my job for years even got a few promotions. Nothing out of the ordinary. Until the call at 2:30am. I got up having dressed rather sleepily, my buttons on my shirt were out of line. Just like school days. I jumped into the car, although it was hardly worth it for a journey so short. Patrick and Maria didn’t live far from me and that was where I’d been summoned.

On my arrival at the house I met my boss. He’d been there for half an hour already and was now sat perched on Patrick’s doorstep.

“Real mess in there.” he said. “Blood everywhere. Screaming heard two hours ago by the neighbour. Surprised you didn’t hear anything, being so close and all.”
“Sound sleeper Boss” I said as I pushed open the door. Keeping it light to hide my surprise. Surely there was some mistake, surely my DCI was wrong.

He wasn’t.

Blood coated every surface in the living room of Patrick and Maria. The police photographers were taking pictures, mostly of Maria’s dismembered torso which sat centre stage in the room. To the left of it was her head, and on a sofa tossed idly like it was a weekly periodical was a blood soaked chainsaw. I felt sick.

Patrick rocked involuntarily, a crazed look on his face, in the far corner of the room. His hands cuffed behind his back.

“Why did you do it?” I asked him.
“Well officer,” he replied quietly. “It was what the leprechaun said..”